Costs Overview

All insights in the Costs Overview Dashboard are derived from the settlement reports ingested from your processors, and Primer’s Payment services data, transformed into the Primer Unified Report. The Costs Overview Dashboard is available to all merchants with Reconciliation product access.

Filters and controls

Control	Description
`Cost volume / Cost rate`	Toggle between viewing costs as absolute amounts (Cost volume) or as a percentage of total transaction value (Cost rate).
`Split by Processor / Split by Region`	Switch between a processor-level and region-level breakdown. Split by Region only includes cost data for payments processed through Primer, and shows aggregated cost data per region across all PSPs.
`By hour / day / week`	Controls the granularity of the time axis. Applies to the Costs over time chart only, for both Cost volume and Cost rate views.

Summary cards

The % change indicator compares the current period to the previous equivalent period. A red value means costs have increased; a green value means costs have decreased.

Costs are always displayed as positive values. Values shown in parentheses are negative and represent credits issued to the merchant.

Metric	Description
`Total processing costs` — Cost volume	What payment processing is costing you. The sum of all processing fees across transactions in the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Total processing costs` — Cost rate	How much of your transaction volume goes to payment processing. Calculated as (Processing cost ÷ TPV) × 100, where TPV (Total Processed Volume) = sum of Sale, Refund, and Dispute transaction values in the selected period, converted to base currency.
`Estimated total FX costs` — Cost volume	What currency conversion is costing you. For every FX transaction, we compare the processor’s applied rate to the mid-market rate — the difference multiplied by the transaction amount is the FX cost. Summed across all FX transactions and converted to base currency.
`Estimated total FX costs` — Cost rate	What share of your FX volume is lost to currency conversion. FX cost per transaction = (processor rate − mid-market rate) × transaction amount. Calculated as (Total FX cost ÷ FX transaction volume) × 100, converted to base currency.
`Sale costs` — Cost volume	The processing costs of Sale transactions. The sum of all processing fees on Sale transactions in the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Sale costs` — Cost rate	How much of your Sale volume goes to processing fees. Calculated as (Sale processing cost ÷ Sale transaction volume) × 100, where Sale transaction volume is the sum of Sale transaction values in the selected period, converted to base currency.
`Refund costs` — Cost volume	The processing costs of Refund transactions. The sum of all processing fees on Refund transactions in the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Refund costs` — Cost rate	How much of your Refund volume goes to processing fees. Calculated as (Refund processing cost ÷ Refund transaction volume) × 100, where Refund transaction volume is the sum of Refund transaction values in the selected period, converted to base currency.
`Dispute costs` — Cost volume	The processing costs of Dispute transactions. The sum of all processing fees on Dispute transactions in the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Dispute costs` — Cost rate	How much of your Dispute volume goes to processing fees. Calculated as (Dispute processing cost ÷ Dispute transaction volume) × 100, where Dispute transaction volume is the sum of Dispute transaction values in the selected period, converted to base currency.
`Transfer costs` — Cost volume	The processing costs of Transfer transactions. The sum of all processing fees on Transfer transactions in the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Transfer costs` — Cost rate	How much of your Transfer volume goes to processing fees. Calculated as (Transfer processing cost ÷ Transfer transaction volume) × 100, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Fee costs` — Cost volume	The processing costs of standalone Fee transactions. The sum of all processing fees on Fee transactions in the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Fee costs` — Cost rate	Not available. Because standalone Fee transactions represent pure cost with no associated transaction volume, the cost rate would always be 100% and is not a meaningful metric.

Charts

Chart	Description
`Costs over time` — Cost volume	Your payment processing costs over time, split by processor. Each bar shows the total processing fees for that hour, day, or week, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Costs over time` — Cost rate	Your payment processing cost rate over time, split by processor. Each data point is (Processing cost ÷ TPV) × 100 for the period, where TPV = sum of Sale, Refund, and Dispute transaction values, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Costs by processor` — Cost volume	Your total payment processing costs grouped by payment processor. Each bar is the total cost for that processor over the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Costs by processor` — Cost rate	Your payment processing cost rate by processor. Each bar is (Processing cost ÷ TPV) × 100 over the selected period, where TPV = sum of Sale, Refund, and Dispute transaction values, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Costs by fees category` — Cost volume *	Your payment processing costs grouped by fee category (Interchange, Scheme, Processor), with bars per payment processor. Each bar is the total for that combination over the selected period, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Costs by fees category` — Cost rate *	Payment processing cost rate by fee category (Interchange, Scheme, Processor), with bars per payment processor. Each bar is (Fee category cost ÷ TPV) × 100 over the selected period, where TPV = Sale + Refund + Dispute volume, converted to base currency. Excludes FX costs.
`Estimated FX costs by top currency pairs` — Cost volume	FX costs across your top 10 currency pairs (ranked by FX cost), with bars per processor. FX cost is calculated as the difference between the processor’s applied exchange rate and the mid-market rate, multiplied by the transaction amount — summed over the selected period and converted to base currency.
`Estimated FX costs by top currency pairs` — Cost rate	FX cost rate across your top 10 currency pairs (ranked by FX cost), with bars per processor. Each bar is (FX cost ÷ FX transaction volume) × 100 over the selected period, converted to base currency. FX cost = (processor rate − mid-market rate) × transaction amount.

*The fee category breakdown depends on the granularity of cost data provided by each PSP in their settlement reporting. Where a PSP reports a single aggregated cost per transaction rather than a line-by-line breakdown, all costs for that PSP will appear under Processor — it is not possible to allocate them to Interchange or Scheme.

​Filters and controls

​Summary cards

​Charts

Filters and controls

Summary cards

Charts